Doubling Down: Healthcare Site Isn’t Obama’s Katrina–It’s His Iraq War

So it was the New York Times that introduced–by way of a former adviser to George W. Bush (FAIR Blog, 11/15/13)–the notion that the bungled rollout of the Affordable Care Act website was somehow like Hurricane Katrina. The analogy caught on in the rest of the media.

At the top of his November 15 broadcast, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams:

Good evening. President Obama now finds himself compared to President George W. Bush, as in the problems with the healthcare plan have become President Obama’s Katrina.

Williams offered up the Katrina analogy to NBC colleague David Gregory for analysis:

GREGORY: Yeah, and the White House doesn’t like it, you can imagine why. They think Republicans are pushing some of this, some allies of former President Bush. It only goes so far. I think if you’re talking about competence of an administration or the ability for government to handle a really big project, maybe there is some comparisons. But it probably stops there.

So this isn’t like a massive disaster that killed almost 2,000 people. That’s good to know.

Oh wait, David Gregory kept talking:

Frankly, I liken this more, Brian, to the Iraq War. That was life and death. This is not. It’s totally different. But when it comes to an issue through which everything else will be judged, I think that’s the comparison to the previous administration. It’s the one they are trying to fight through now.

All right–so it’s not like Katrina; it’s more like the far more serious catastrophe of the Iraq War, a multi-trillion dollar disaster that killed hundreds of thousands of people. Except, Gregory says, for that life-and-death part; then the analogy doesn’t quite fit.

Is anyone following this?

This wasn’t a slip of the tongue, either; Gregory made the same claim two days later on Meet the Press (11/17/13). “Is the rough rollout of Obamacare the president’s own Hurricane Katrina?” Gregory asked at the beginning of the show. He delivered his own answer:

People will say this is like Katrina; I think it’s more like Iraq. That was about life and death, this is not. That’s not the comparison. The comparison is everybody looked at Bush through the prism of Iraq. Here, I think people are going to look at Obama through the implementation of Obamacare.

Of course, one could make a pretty good case that access to healthcare is actually life and death.

For the record, MSNBC pundit Chris Matthews was on hand to say he didn’t think the Katrina analogy really fit. Then again, he also stressed that Obama’s management style left something to be desired, since one couldn’t really be sure who was in charge of executing his plan:

Look at Japan, the occupation of Japan, it simple: Put one guy in charge, Doug MacArthur. You put somebody in charge and they’re uniquely responsible for its success or failure. Obama doesn’t do things that way.

So it’s not Katrina, it’s more like the Iraq War, or perhaps the post-World War II occupation of Japan. Got it.

Activism Director and and Co-producer of CounterSpinPeter Hart is the activism director at FAIR. He writes for FAIR's magazine Extra! and is also a co-host and producer of FAIR's syndicated radio show CounterSpin. He is the author of The Oh Really? Factor: Unspinning Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly (Seven Stories Press, 2003). Hart has been interviewed by a number of media outlets, including NBC Nightly News, Fox News Channel's O'Reilly Factor, the Los Angeles Times, Newsday and the Associated Press. He has also appeared on Showtime and in the movie Outfoxed. Follow Peter on Twitter at @peterfhart.

This blog post does a reasonable job at showing the incoherent mire that passes for political analysis on U.S. television, but I get irritated when people blithely dismiss analogies because the things being compared differ in some arbitrary way, in order to discredit the argument without refuting it.

By definition, in a useful analogy, the things being compared will have some aspects similar, and some different. A good analogy will explain or illuminate; there’s no requirement that items with dissimilar death tolls, or historic significance generally, be disqualified from comparison.

For example, when, after his arrest, Tom DeLay compared himself to Jesus, he was widely mocked, but I had no problem with it. One of the best things about Christianity is the teaching that you can see the divine in the most despised and degraded person. Of course, there’s little in DeLay’s career that shows he ever saw it that way until he was the one being booked (or since), and that’s a criticism that would have been more valid than mere reflexive snorting about him bringing Jesus into it.

Well I am not sure how anyone could even begin to use the ‘Iraq war’ as a comparison to the Website roll out. First off, Bush was in the Cat Bird seat with the republican uber-richt policy wonks, he could do no wrong (and far too many of the Democrat who should have known better played into this), nor was he seriously challenged by any of the major media in the beginning; it was not until we finally figured that he had lied about WMD’s, lied about the cost of the war, and lied about the outcome that finally a couple of news outlets ‘questioned’ the wisdom of the attack; so that alone denies any ‘resemblance’ to Iraq war.

They could ‘conceivably’ compare it to Katrina only in that it will one of the things pinned on President Obama where he did make a few ‘gaffs’ prior and they came back to bite him; e.g. the fact that he did not seem to put the right person in charge and caused the ball to be dropped far too often, thus starting out with some serious negative feedback. Thus part of his Popularity decline will be attributed to this, accurately or inaccurately.

But to lets not forget that they Uber-richt media moguls all yelled and screamed when Iraq was “compared to Vietnam”, in that we had been in the Country for 13 years already, we were losing soldiers daily to insurgents, and we were ramping up for a war that was illegal, immoral, and totally unnecessary, just as we doing right now to Iran.

So in using comparison to make a point, too often the Corporate media plays the Black/White doublethink card – if our person says it, then it is wisdom and good, but if the other side says exactly the same thing then is meaningless and bogus.

What a strange nation I live in. Who are these talking heads and anchors?
O.K. there were problems with the computers with the health care rollout , and didn’t I just read that DHS was looking into the hacking issues of that website too?
There are problems when anything has a new system or a new program. Talk to BILL GATES about WINDOWS : ) Social Security had problems when it began too, and so did all the wars we’ve ever been in.
O.K. geez, what will they call the computer problems with the New Jersey on line gambling failures? Is this Chris Christies Harpers Ferry, or the Alamo…or wow, is it the Monthy Python versions of the Bush flight deck speech” “Mission Accomplished?”
LOL.. I can just hear Williams and Gregory now…It will be Christies’ Sandy? OH, my, and throw in the lions, tigers and bears too : )
I watched the old news shows today. I saw how Walter Cronkite handled the news about JFK. There were runmors, but how honest and real he was in dealing with his responsibility. Looking back at that, and then seeing news today, it really seems that TV news must have died on what ever date Walter Cronkite did.
Williams and Gregory, shame, shame, shame. Without thought and standards, ethics and intelligence, there is no news.You two are imploding the concept of journalism. It’s like what Oppenheimer said about the Atomic bomb and death,and we can apply it to you two. ……………now the NEWS is made death…………and I don’t think that many people believe very much in what you two pretenders to journalism say either .

Wyo are these people pretending to be journalists? They are in . a chat room now and we are all listening to bizarre stream of consciousness?

The website doesn’t work well. Got it. Eventually it will get fixed, or mostly fixed, but maybe will still have a few bugs for awhile. That’s the nature of software: doesn’t always work good. Ask General Bill Gates about all the Post-WWII Japans and Iraq Wars and Katrinas that his technical flops that have affected millions worldwide have never been compared too. Hmmm, wonder why? Maybe because he is a big-time capitalist, and he’s white? Naw, that’s too easy. We need smarter minds like Matthews and Gregory and Williams and their big and savvy news organizations to set us straight and make the tough but right comparisons. Otherwise, people might think for themselves as say, “Wait a minute, this is just a big and annoying technical problem, but it will be fixed. So what.” No, can’t have that. That’s too… simple. And simply right.

The website doesn’t work well. Got it. Eventually it will get fixed, or mostly fixed, but maybe will still have a few bugs for awhile. That’s the nature of software: doesn’t always work good. Ask General Bill Gates about all the Post-WWII Japans and Iraq Wars and Katrinas that his technical flops that have affected millions worldwide have never been compared too. Hmmm, wonder why? Maybe because he is a big-time capitalist, and he’s white? Naw, that’s too easy. We need smarter minds like Matthews and Gregory and Williams and their big and savvy news organizations to set us straight and make the tough but right comparisons. Otherwise, people might think for themselves and reason, “Wait a minute, this is just a big and annoying technical problem, but it will be fixed. So what.” No, can’t have that. That’s too… simple. And simply right.

The website doesn’t work well. Got it. Eventually it will get fixed, or mostly fixed, but maybe will still have a few bugs for awhile. That’s the nature of software: doesn’t always work good. Ask General Bill Gates about all the Post-WWII Japans and Iraq Wars and Katrinas that his technical flops that have affected millions worldwide have never been compared to. Hmmm, wonder why? Maybe because he is a big-time capitalist, and he’s white? Naw, that’s too easy. We need smarter minds like Matthews and Gregory and Williams and their big and savvy news organizations to set us straight and make the tough but right comparisons. Otherwise, people might think for themselves and reason, “Wait a minute, this is just a big and annoying technical problem, but it will be fixed. So what.” No, can’t have that. That’s too… simple. And simply right.

Simply put, I agree that GWB can be judged correctly using Iraq as the critical element of his administration; and similarly, BHO will be judged correctly using ACA/ObamaCare as the critical element of his administration. While these two Presidents have some redeeming qualities – personal charm, etc. – they seem to have similar character flaws that suggest less than stellar ratings by historians.

I actually see a strong comparison to all these things.They all show how we rely on government to be at the very least competent.At the most superb in their job.We have not met the standard of minimum competence as of yet on most things government undertakes.And it has not led to discomfort….it has led to people dying.And if this healthcare continues to unravel it will lead to untold numbers of people dying.Along with all kinds of “lesser” nightmare scenarios.Moral of the story is when you ask yourself should you trust government,or some individual in it???……Don’t bet your life(or anyone else’s life) on it.

The comparison of Iraq and the ACA as a the lens through which each respective presidency will be judged seems very obvious, and Gregory made that point in way that cannot be denied. Wheres you, Peter Hart, have resorted to the lowest common denominator of finding fault when you know none exists. That is the far right tactic that drives all ‘true’ progressives up a wall. I am a dyed in the wool progressive who values our objective, accurate assessment of issues rather than ridicule and slant in a disgusting attempt to gain political advantage. Thank you Peter for dragging that ideal into the mud.

“Of course, one could make a pretty good case that access to healthcare is actually life and death.”

A few years ago a study by Harvard Medical School concluded that about 45,000 Americans die every year as the result of inadequate medical insurance. That’s a lot of collateral damage. Maybe the healthcare issue is the Republicans’ domestic Iraq War.

[…] Who exactly was raising this question? Shear attributes it to… a former adviser to George W. Bush. But the website=Katrina line was soon everywhere– which seemed absurd, until NBC's David Gregory explained that the more apt comparison would be the Iraq War (FAIR Blog, 11/18/13). […]

[…] He warned against excessive criticism of banks, and falsely claimed that “anybody who gets a paycheck in this country” was paying a new Obamacare surtax that actually applied to income over $200,000. He referred to problems with the Affordable Care Act website as Obama’s Iraq War. […]